2 February 2014

The eye-catchy colours and lines of Paul Klee (2)

As
promised here is another piece inspired by that clever colourist whose Tate
Modern, London, retrospective ‘Making Visible’ I visited last year (it runs till 9th
March 2014).

I love Paul Klee’s explorative understanding of colour and on seeing Greeting and Separation in the Evening (above) I just thought “wouldn’t these translate into a lovely chest of drawers?”

Greetings from Berlin

These quite tiny watercolour
studies (both done in 1922 and for his students) explore how
complementary colours work together (Klee was a great teacher at the
Bauhaus).

I was really struck by Greeting (above) in which Klee paints shutter-like bands of gradated
colour across a page while differently colouredarrows flow up and down to meet (and greet?). As an exercise in using complementary colours, what I found interesting was the way in which he starts with orange at the bottom
and ends with gluey-grey at the top. In between there is no colour, just white. I tried the same
approach in my studio using Barcelona Orange and Greek Blue from the Chalk Paint® range. I mixed the two complementary colours together, creating a similar effect to Klee's painting but with a dark greyish colour in the centre drawer. I was fortunate to find a chest which has no gaps in the drawers, which really helped create the effect of stripes of colour.

Get it on your Chest

1. I started on the bottom drawer with
Chalk Paint® inGreek Blue, and then I mixed some Barcelona
Orange until I thought “that’s a nice colour” and painted it on.

2. On the next shelf up I added a
little bit more Barcelona Orange, mixed it in again until I thought “yes, that’s
another nice colour’.

3. I continued upwards, drawer by
drawer, each time adding a bit more Barcelona Orange to make quite gradual
colour gradations (on drawers 1-4).

4. I then made a big jump to
drawers 5 and 6 as I wanted to end up with pure Barcelona Orange.

I really like the overall effect, even
if the gradations are a bit “jumpy” at the top. Actually that might be its
charm because it is not so studied or predictably “colour coded”. (Otherwise, I would
have needed a massively tall piece of furniture!). And all I needed was just two pots of
paint!The modernist furniture piece was a great canvas to work on too: I
painted a graphite line around it and the little brass handles are a lovely touch –
a bit like a 1950’s military coat (think Sgt. Pepper's). The overall effect is very pleasing and you see the magic of complementary colours at work!

Annie. I'm so intrigued by your thought process as you explore new ways to work with color and how you study great teachers like Klee. History is a great teacher for artists. Thanks for your thoughts and willingness to share them with us.

Excellent website you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any user discussion forums that cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really love to be a part of group where I can get responses from other experienced individuals that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions,